The Ingush
were one of the Caucasian Muslim peoples brought together in the Mountain ASSR
of 1920. Four years later a separate Ingush region was established, and this in
turn merged with Chechnya in 1924. In 1992 (?) the Ingush separated from the
breakaway Chechen state — a wise move in view of
the subsequent invasion by Russia of the latter.Stuart Notholt

Description of the flag

The author of the original version of this
flag is Khusen Barakhoiev (Хусен
Барахоев | Qusen
Baraqoev).Mikhail Revnivtsev, 02 Oct 2005

A new Law dated 11 July 1999,
available
online (in Russian), changed the proportions
of the flag, established by the Law of 13 May 1994 as 1:2, to 2:3.Antonio Gutiérrez, 25 Jun 2006

Descriptions of the solar sign are different in the
1994 and 1999 laws.Antonio Gutiérrez, 30 Jun 2006

Legal text

Recently I received a document from the
Parliament of the Republic of
Ingushetia what seems to be the official annex to the Law of 11 July
1999. The image of the flag in the annex has nothing to do with the
previous one, and fits more accurately (although
not entirely) with the description and measures prescribed in article 1 of
the Law and also with the images of actual flags. As far as I know this is
the one and only annex to the Law, so no construction sheet is
available, at least as annex to the Law.Antonio Gutiérrez, 02 Oct 2006

The details of Article One are as follows:

The National flag of the Republic of Ingushetia is a rectangular white
panel, in the centre of which is a solar sign in the form of a red circle
with three arched beams coming from the latter. The ratio of the flag’s
width to its length is 1:2.

There are two green stripes — along the whole length of the upper and
lower parts of the flag. Each of them is 1/6 of the total width of the flag.
The radius of the inner circle of the solar sign is 1/6 of the flag’s
width. Each of the three beams of the solar sign is a semicircle, the inner
radius of which is 1/8 of the flag’s width. The width of the stripe,
making a circumference of the solar sign and that of the beams, is 1/36 of the
flag’s width.

The beams are located evenly along the circumference of the solar sign and
directed anticlockwise.

The Law does not specify an overall size for the emblem, which in turn would
give us a reasonable idea of the angle at which the beams join the circle
and/or the amount showing.Christopher Southworth, 21 Oct 2003

“Incorrect” depiction based on the
1999 law text

image by Antonio Gutiérrez, 25 Jun 2006

Following the construction details of the flag, including the solar device,
as prescribed in the Law, I’ve tried to reconstruct the flag. The
problem here is that no accompanying illustrations of the laws (if any) are
known [until later], and I don’t know if these
images include exact construction details.Antonio Gutiérrez, 25 and 30 Jun 2006

Shade of red

The “wheel” inside that flag is a sun symbol.
It is red, truly red.Ralf Stelter, 27 Jun 1999

The 1999 law text mentions
«красного
круга»
(red disc), not using the well-known words
"пурпурный",
"тёмне
красный" or
"чеверлёный",
which stand for dark red and are used in the legal description of the
flags of Moscow city,
Chuvashia and not many others.António Martins, 28 Jun 2006

Incorrect and variant depictions

The flag of Ingushetia has been a real problem with regard to the
wonderful variety of official specs on offer, although the new lot seem to
answer a lot of questions with regard to how it should look now.Christopher Southworth, 30 Jun 2006

To make things more complicated, the book Winds of change
[r4f96] gives two different descriptions
[of the pre-1999 flag], the one of the Law and
another Description signed by President of the Republic of Ingushetia
on 22 June 1994. [See image from this
book.]
Moreover, on vex-bulletin Informace (VexiINFO) No. 1,
dated 6 April 1994 [vei94a] are given
construction details for the solar sign, whose specs doesn’t fit
with any of the prescribed in the said documents.
More complications. The Law of 1994 appears in the 1999 Law as abolished,
numbered 1-RKZ and dated 13 May 1994. According to
this on line
document, Law is made up of 8 articles. At
Heraldica.RU website
there is another text, this numbered 36 and dated 15 July 1994, with 9
articles (this text is the one transcribed in
[r4f96]). Obviously are different texts
(?).
Finally, according to Gaceta de Banderas No. 9 (1993, page 44)
[gdb], quoting Flaggenmitteilung
[fml], the flag was adopted 7 April 1993.
All this give the following resumed timeline for the 1993-1994 period:

Construction details of the solar sign in Informace
[vei94a] (date of publication 6 April
1994).

Law No. 1-RKZ, 13 May 1994 (text unknown).

Description of the flag, 22 June 1994.

Law No. 36, 15 July 1994.

Unfortunately more questions than answers. I just can say that there are not
just one construction specs for the solar sign, but various from different
dates.Antonio Gutiérrez, 30 Jun 2006

From [British TV station] BBC4’s “The World”, a report
from the Russian republic of Ingushetia, which included an interview with the
Ingush President, with the flag behind
him, and a shot of the flag flying
as taken from Ingush television and which was included in the BBC report. The
problem is that the two flags weren’t identical (and the flag on
ingushetia.ru is different again): the
“arms” on the central motif are different thicknesses
and different shapes: On the first scene, the red hoop is thicker, and the
three “arms” are chunky, not very curved and
“facing” the hoist; on the second the “arms”
appear to be almost straight with a “knob” at the end.André Coutanche, 21 May 2004 and 03 Oct 2005

Not all the images are clear, but some shows clearly (at least for me) the
rays as a straight line, and the top of the rays doesn’t seem to be a
semi-circle as prescribed by the Law, or at least a very strange semi-circle.
(The shape of the solar sign is in these images the same as in the ones seen
on the BBC.)
Most photos show the top beam very close to the upper green stripe (device
centered in the inner circle?) and most flags seems to be upside down, with
the vertical beam downwards!Antonio Gutiérrez, 02 Jul 2006